Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Let your mind wander and go crazy once you enter Asylum, a fantasy novel by Madeline Roux.

Daniel Crawford is a 16-year-old high school student who is spending the summer in New Hampshire to attend a college prep program at New Hampshire College.  While the regular dorms are being renovated, students of this program are put up in Brookline, a former Asylum that holds many secrets.  Dan soon makes friends with Abby and Jordan while attending the program and together, they decide to go against campus rules and explore the hidden, forbidden ward of the building to find out what secrets it holds.  Is there a time when secrets should be kept quiet?  What is it about Brookline that people from the area don't want others to find out?  Roux takes you on an adventure of a lifetime with Dan and his friends as we spend the five weeks with them as they attend college prep in Brookline.

Roux really brought these characters to life and you couldn't help but relate to them.  Dan was my favorite.  An outcast from his regular high school, he found friends he could relate to once he arrived at New Hampshire college.  Even at times when the friends fought and weren't talking to each other, I wasn't put off or angry at the direction of the story.  And Roux quickly had the friends make up so the flow of the story kept going along.

One thing was for certain, Roux certainly knows how to keep the reader's mind in suspense throughout the whole book.  With twists and turns, you never knew where she was going to take you next.  Even though there were times I thought I had figured it out, she surprised me with another twist out of nowhere.  I found myself not being able to wait to get to the next chapter to see what was going to happen.

There is a touch of a high school romance in this book, for all those who love a little romance, especially in a fantasy book.  Roux touches upon it lightly, which in a book of this nature, was enough.  We didn't need anything that was over the top romance, that would've taken away from the story of the asylum which was the focus of the novel.

What I especially liked about the novel is how Roux incorporated the real photos from asylums in the past.  They gave the spooky feeling to go along with the novel and it also helped me to picture what the building looked like that the kids were living in for the summer.  

I rated this book 5 out of 5 stars.  Roux is a fantastic writer and I look forward to reading the second book of the series I just took out at the library.  There was nothing in this book I didn't like, which usually never happens, and I can't wait to read more.